#BlogTour Bad Apples by Will Dean

 It’s a pleasure to take part in the BlogTour Bad Apples by Will Dean. – TV Rights to Dark Pines have been optioned by Lionsgate, the producers of Mad Men, with plans for a multi-part series featuring Tuva Moodyson.

About the Author

Will Dean grew up in the East Midlands and lived in nine different villages before the age of eighteen. His debut novel, Dark Pines, was selected for Zoe Ball’s Book Club, shortlisted for the Guardian Not the Booker prize and named a Daily Telegraph Book of the Year. The second Tuva Moodyson thriller, Red Snow, won ‘Best Independent Voice’ at the Amazon Publishing Readers’ Awards, 2019, and was longlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2020. 

The third novel, Black River, has been longlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2021. Rights for the series have been sold in eight territories (France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Poland, Czech Republic, China and Turkey). Will lives in Sweden where the Tuva Moodyson novels are set. Follow @willrdean on Twitter 

About the book

A murder – A resident of small-town Visberg is found decapitated in the forest. A festival – An isolated hilltop community celebrates ’Pan Night’ after the apple harvest.

A race against time – As Visberg closes ranks, there could not be a worse time for Tuva Moodyson to arrive as deputy editor of the local newspaper. Tuva senses the scoop of her career, unaware perhaps that she is the story…

Set in Sweden’s Halloween season, when the forests are full of elk hunters and the town of Visberg is thick with the aroma of rotting fruit, Bad Apples is a thrilling introduction for readers new to the series, and for die-hard #TeamTuva fans, a heart-stopping rollercoaster…

Review

Come on! You can’t end a book like that – there are cliffhangers and then there are specific methods of torture designed to bring pain to bookworms. Arrgh!

This is the fourth installment in the fabulously riveting Tuva Modyson series, and this one isn’t just another cracking read, it’s a fast-paced smorgasbord of criminal aptitude and deviancy. Dean never disappoints and always delivers the goods.

Tuva returns to Gavrick – yeh we have no idea why she would be so foolish either – to restart in a new location with old friends and new characters. The combination of the isolated, dense and often overpoweringly menacing surroundings and the crime story unfolding around Pan Night is both terrifying and a stroke of genius, from a crime perspective.

The people of Gavrick give their hidden passion, otherwise controlled impulses and perhaps criminal inclinations free reign during this time. It makes it difficult for Tuva to find a ruthless and vicious killer, who thinks nothing of adding to their bloody repertoire.

This series just keeps getting better, indeed the same can be said about Dean’s work in general. I can’t wait to see this on-screen. I do hope they get the atmosphere and casting right.

Buy Bad Apples at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher ‏: ‎Point Blank;  pub date 7 Oct. 2021. Buy at Amazon com.

#Review The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean

Review

Jane is an unwilling participant in her marriage. She is a captive. She stays only to keep someone else safe, although her husband has made it impossible to escape his clutches. Hope seems to be a thing of the past until something changes her determination to break free of the chains that bind her so tightly.

Dean certainly is full of surprises, which isn’t a bad thing when it comes to writing or creating captivating stories. Just when you think you have the measure of the flair, spectrum and ability, and then he goes and writes a complete curveball. A brilliantly engaging, intense and incredibly important one.

Aside from the immaculate plotting and on point characters there is another element of the story that absolutely deserves a kudos. The way Dean was able to immerse himself into the world of coercive, mental, physical abuse and the psychological abuse that goes hand-in-hand with trafficking and modern day slavery. You’ll often hear or read cries of indignation ‘why didn’t he/she leave or ask for help, which of course is one of the many reasons abusive relationships are incomprehensible to someone who hasn’t experienced them – the inability to comprehend the dynamics of control, power and abuse.

Whilst it is absolutely true that the young, vulnerable and inexperienced are statistically more likely to become victims, abuse does not halt before the intelligent, educated mind or person. It is far more complex than that. Anyway I digress.

My point is that Dean writes this with such an in-depth perception it made me wonder about the ability of certain storytellers to write beyond the construct and patriarchal dogma or bias of their gender, which is important depending on the topic and the gender of their characters. This story would have been ruined by tropes, instead it is a hard-hitting piece of fiction set in realism.

It is also written in an almost minimalistic style and mindset, which captures the isolation of the main character and the surroundings. An element I found extremely intriguing given where the story takes place. It serves as a stark reminder as to how disconnected the majority of us are from each other. Easier to look away and ignore the obvious signs than to become involved and help.

Above all Dean shines a spotlight on one of the most prevalent crimes of our modern era, although one could argue that slavery and human trafficking has merely evolved with the times and the demand. Unfortunately it’s a very profitable, albeit completely despicable business and crime.

This is a cracking read. Oh and kudos to the author for the name and identity part of the story, especially in relation to Mary. Subtle, and yet simultaneously gut-wrenching and visceral. 

Buy/Pre-order The Last Thing to Burn at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton; pub date 7 Jan. 2021. Buy at Amazon com. Hive. Bookshop org. Waterstones.

Follow @willrdean on Twitter, on Amazon, on Goodreads, on Youtube, Buy The Last Thing to Burn

#BlogTour Red Snow by Will Dean

It’s my turn on the BlogTour for Red Snow by Will Dean today. It’s witty, eccentric and down-to-earth, and I thoroughly enjoyed the sarcastic quips. Dean is definitely an author to watch. Happy Publication Day!

About the Author

Will Dean grew up in the East Midlands, living in nine different villages before the age of eighteen. After studying at the LSE and working in London, he settled in rural Sweden with his wife. He built a wooden house in a boggy forest clearing at the centre of a vast elk forest, and it’s from this base that he compulsively reads and writes.

Follow @willrdean @PtBlankBks on Twitter #RedSnow

Buy Red Snow

About the book

Two Bodies – One suicide. One cold-blooded murder. Are they connected? And who’s really pulling the strings in the small Swedish town of Gavrik?

Two Coins – Black Grimberg liquorice coins cover the murdered man’s eyes. The hashtag #Ferryman starts to trend as local people stock up on ammunition.

Two Weeks – Tuva Moodyson, deaf reporter at the local paper, has a fortnight to investigate the deaths before she starts her new job in the south. A blizzard moves in. Residents, already terrified, feel increasingly cut-off. Tuva must go deep inside the Grimberg factory to stop the killer before she leaves town for good. But who’s to say the Ferryman will let her go?

Review

I have been hearing and seeing a lot about Will Dean lately. Bloggers, readers and reviewers were quite impressed by Dark Pines, the first book in the Tuva Moodyson series. This is the second book, and less than halfway through it I went and bought the first book, which says a lot about the strength of his writing and his talent for telling a story.

This time Tuva happens to notice a link between some tragic accidents and deaths with the biggest local employer. At first they just seem to be random events, but when certain events start linking back to her habit of asking too many questions, she starts to wonder whether something more nefarious is afoot.

It’s witty, eccentric and down-to-earth, and I thoroughly enjoyed the sarcastic quips. Instead of presenting the surroundings as the romanticised version most people have of Sweden or Scandinavian countries in general, the author presents a more realistic image of the living conditions and the population.

That particular hardened, brusque attitude towards life is what makes this series so charming, and of course let’s not forget Tuva herself. She is definitely a memorable character. At times it seems as if she just accidentally falls into trouble then her gut instinct kicks in and she starts to dig like a dog who has caught a scent.

For me the most interesting element of Tuva’s character is her deafness. In particular how the author describes the perhaps trivial details of her daily existence in relation to her non-hearing and hearing with hearing aids. Instead of embracing the joy of being able to hear, which is how the deaf are usually described, it’s more about enjoying the silence. The small details about wearing the aids, how they fit and feel, the impact of low level noise on her –  it makes all the difference to the story and the character.

It’s an unusual combination of comfortable pace, uncooperative characters – including Tuva, a snarky sense of humour with a noirish vibe. I look forward to seeing where Dean takes Tuva next.

Buy Red Snow (A Tuva Moodyson Mystery #2) at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer.

Publisher: Point Blank; pub date 10 Jan. 2019

Buy Dark Pines (A Tuva Moodyson Mystery #1)